The long awaited film streaming site FilmStruck made its long-awaited debut today, announcing itself as the go-to site for fans of classic films. The big news with FilmStruck is that it’s a joint venture between Turner Classic Movies and the Criterion Collection, the standard for classic film curation. Criterion pulled their collection from Hulu, their previous streaming home, in order to offer their full streaming library on FilmStruck, giving the new site its premium cachet.

So now that it’s launched, is FilmStruck everything that it’s been cracked up to be? Let’s tackle this point by point.

The Basics

Per the FilmStruck “about” page: “FilmStruck is a new subscription on-demand service that offers film aficionados a comprehensive library of films including an eclectic mix of contemporary and classic art house, indie, foreign and cult films.”

The Collection

This is obviously the big draw, and FilmStruck doesn’t disappoint here. There are hundreds of movies here, organized into genres and also playlists, the latter of which feel curated without being overly byzantine. There’s an Akira Kurosawa playlist that features 26 (!) of the director’s titles. There’s a Truffaut playlist (19 films), an Ingmar Bergman playlist (18 films), a Jane Campion list (4, none of which is Bright Star, to my chagrin). There’s a playlist of movies that have been banned, including In the Realm of the Senses, which was notorious for unsimulated sex and extreme violent acts. There’s a “Serious Woody Allen” playlist (yes, it includes Interiors).

And that’s before even getting into The Criterion Collection, which offers an unparalleled collection of art-house, foreign, and documentary films that are about as highbrow as highbrow gets. If that’s your thing, I can’t imagine FilmStruck will disappoint. Some popular titles:

FilmStruck says they’re going to be updating the collection weekly, so that every week there will be new movies for users to enjoy.

The User Experience

The playlists are handy for browsing, and the curation itself is strong. Within each playlist, films can be ordered alphabetically or by release date. On each film page, there are options to watch on phone, tablet, Amazon Fire TV, or Apple TV.

The Criterion films are similarly catalogued by genre and playlist. There’s also an option to browse the entire collection alphabetically, if you’re just looking for one specific movie, which you wouldn’t think would be such a notable feature, until you think about how many other streaming services don’t offer it. And all those plentiful Criterion special features won’t be going to waste either, and they’re made available on the film pages.

It also allows members to keep a watchlist for films they intend to watch later (according to tweets from more zealous users, the watchlist tops out at 100 films).

The Price

The basic FilmStruck monthly fee is $6.99, but if you’re in it for the Criterion Collection (and why wouldn’t you be?), you’re shelling out $10.99 a month. And if you’re sure you’re not going to get sick of all these brilliant movies in a month, the $99 annual plan seems like the best option. Even if you only end up watching one film a month, that works out to roughly $8 per film. That’s a pretty good deal considering how good these movies are.

As of the time this post is being written, the FilmStruck site is having some issues with the sign-up system, so at present, the dream of the FilmStruck/Criterion library is just that: a dream. But one day, those technical glitches will be fixed, and on that day, you can luxuriate in this pristine collection to your heart’s content. From Almodovar to Spike Jonze; Truffaut to Orson Welles.